USER INTERFACE(S)

The user interface is designed with software that enables the user to learn what is available in the system, formulate specific requests for information, receive and display the results of a search, and perform other tasks, such as storing the retrieved data, sorting it, sending it to someone else, and incorporating it into another document. With the advent of the graphical user interface (GUI), there have been tremendous improvements in interface software which have made it much easier to understand and use systems, and enable many more tasks to be performed.

A well designed graphical user interface is a critical element of the legislative information system because it will allow staff to find information without having to know where it is stored or what search commands to use. For example, the interface would enable the user to request the official electronic version of the bill as it passed the House, which might be stored at GPO, and the schedule for the markup on that bill in a Senate committee, which might be stored on a committee server. The user would not have to know how to request that data technically, nor know where it was stored. The interface would take care of these tasks.

Interfaces can also be customized to meet the needs of different types of users (expert, novice, congressional, public, etc.) at a relatively small cost compared with alternatives such as building a different system to meet the needs of various users. A building metaphor may help to illustrate this point. The collection and preparation of data, and the design of a search engine can be compared to the foundation, walls, roof, plumbing, and wiring of a house. The user interface is analogous to the windows of that house, both in terms of its cost relative to the rest of the house, and in the sense that it allows different views into the data that resides in the house. This flexibility of interface software is an important asset because of the range of user needs. For example, the staff of the House and Senate bill status offices are expert users of legislative retrieval systems and have different requirements from the newly arrived legislative correspondent or the professional staff member on the committee.

Another advantage of the flexibility and power of user interface software is that it can manage access to licensed information. For example, if the House and Senate continue to license information from commercial sources under contractual arrangements, it might be possible to integrate this data effectively with the data in the legislative information system through the design of the interface linked with the necessary security systems, and still remain within the requirements of the contractual obligations. There are a variety of options for accomplishing this, depending upon the flexibility of the vendor systems and the interests of the commercial providers. (See previous discussion under DATA SOURCES: COMMERCIAL AND NON-GOVERNMENT)

The power and flexibility of interface software can pose certain challenges. There are a variety of commercial providers of this type of software, and it can be customized by the user as well as by the designers of the legislative information system. The Working Group would need to establish some guidelines regarding the compatibility requirements of the software that offices could select to access the system. Absent such guidelines, the costs to develop and support all the possible software choices could be quite expensive.

The Library recommends that the Working Group form a subteam to design user interfaces(s), taking into account the needs of different users and the variety of data formats. The projected rate of technical enhancements in user interface software, the changing requirements of users, and the growth in the amount and kinds of data available on the system will require that the subteam make adjustments and improvements in the user interface(s) on an ongoing basis. The user interface should encourage and enable user to send suggestions for system improvements to the Working Group.

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